


the stars retreat behind their veil

by devils_trap



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Jacob's alive bc...reasons...., M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-21 11:45:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14284224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devils_trap/pseuds/devils_trap
Summary: “Joseph is on the radio,” Jacob muses, still bored. Like this is just normal locker room talk. Like the world outside hasn't ended, like he's not holding Wyatt there prisoner with the intention of playing with his food before killing it. From against the wall, he cleans beneath his nails with a pocket knife. “He wants to talk to you.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> for all intents and purposes, the storyline is mostly the same. i mostly fudge the timeline, in that joseph's little tantrum is brought on when the deputy is trying to take out jacob, after already taking out faith and john.

The world is actively self destructing around him, but all he feels is numb. His thoughts swim and swirl inside his skull, bubbling and churning in a whirlpool, refusing to cooperate and focus on what's going on around him – the explosions in the sky, the pungent stench of soot, the screaming of animal and human alike ringing out through the mountains.

That could be just from taking the stock of Jacob's rifle to the face, though.

Three times. Whap. Whap. Whap.

Blood pouring down his face and ass in the dirt. Skull connecting heavily with the earth when he crumbles to the floor, ears ringing like school bells. Jacob's boot mercilessly stepping on his throat, as if to keep down a rabid dog.

Best laid plans being what they are, Deputy Wyatt McKenna never planned for _this_. This being that that crazy bastard was actually _right_. All that preaching, fire and brimstone and end of days, the Collapse and the Reaping – all that Shit, it was never supposed to actually be real, just a story fabricated by the chemical imbalance in Joseph Seed's brain; a pipedream used to string along desperate, lost souls; to fill the emptiness in a narcissistic piper's heart.

 _This_ being Jacob Seed, bloody and bruised from Wyatt's own assault, dragging him bodily from atop his sniper's nest, from what should have been Jacob's grave, to what's most assuredly going to be Wyatt's own.

Jacob's got his shirt collar yolked up so tight Wyatt can't parse out whether the black spots in his vision are from oxygen deprivation or from the world imploding around them. With futile swipes of his arms and limp kicks of his legs, he paws at Jacob's grip, his scarred forearms, at the moving dirt beneath his body, desperately trying to eek out enough strength to break free and escape his executioner's clutches.

For all his troubles, Jacob shakes him like a ragdoll, a rabbit in a judge wolf's teeth, hissing beneath his breath something Wyatt's addled brain can't make out.

For all his troubles, nothing he did was enough.

They descend down the choppier side of Jacob's perch and begin down a steadier slope. Jacob's grip is mercifully lessened by the change in angle and air is finally, blessedly, returning to Wyatt's lungs normally. It tastes like scorched earth, like the ash flakes floating through the air. Weakly he holds onto Jacob's wrists, but it's the most energy he can scrounge up at the moment. His arms shake and twinge from the exertion of that alone. He watches with detached amusement as his legs, cargo pants ripped and stained heinously with blood, Jacob's and his own, lamely drag through the grass after the rest of his body.

He's exhausted, his nose is most likely broken, he's just murdered Eli and failed to kill the final Seed Herald, and the world is ending.

Oh, God. Oh shit.

Turns out best two out of three doesn't mean shit in the end. The liberation of Fall's End and the securing of Hope County Jail, the lives he's saved and those he's taken – none of it means shit. You have to collect the full set, none of this partial credit shit, or else you find yourself being dragged god knows where by a man whose siblings you've recently killed, off to what's most definitely your certain death.

The panic hits him like a round to the chest, but there's nothing left within him to address it, let alone fight it. It rings in his ears and twists in his guts and tingles in his limbs but – nothing. He wants to cry, wants to beg for his life. Muster up enough strength for one final miraculous victory, reach the knife in one of his lower pockets or the handgun strapped to his ankle and finish the Heralds once and for all. Plead with Jacob to just drop him, let him die with the falling sky overhead, with his dignity and the remainder of his sanity intact and a bullet lodged firmly between his eyes.

Instead he watches his legs catch on a rock, idly noting the sharp corner that slices the skin above his right ankle as he's dragged along. Licks his lips and smears the mess of drying blood and ash from his nose into his mouth.

The ground beneath him transitions from tall grasses to pavement. Wyatt contemplates the sensation of road rash against his legs and back for just a moment before he's thrown against the side of an Eden's Gate truck, the wind rushing out of him as pain surges through him anew. More black spots dance before his eyes as he's jostled up and into the passenger's side of the cab.

He's struggling against the tides of this fresh dazing when Jacob pops him in the mouth, pop pop pop to his lower jaw. “If you try anything,” Jacob hisses, and besides their wet, raspy breathing the inside of the cab is utterly silent for a beat, the threat thick and cloying in the air. “ _Anything_ , and I'll make you wish you had never been born. Is that clear?”

Numbly, Wyatt manages to get his brain to fire enough synapses to nod his head.

Jacob studies him for a moment. Ash drifts down from the sky and falls to rest on Jacob's shoulders, his hair, his scarred cheeks. His eyes are blue slits, hard and cold and calculating. The fires around them seem to live in those blue depths, crackling and reflecting outward.

He almost seems placated and his eyes drop slowly from Wyatt's face, like he's just as exhausted by all of this as Wyatt is. He looks older here, crouched before Wyatt, than he ever has. No longer the shining military man in the posters Eden's Gate are so fond of.

But they land on the handgun strapped to his ankle, exposed by the rock's assault from earlier. His nostrils flare and Wyatt has but a second to realize something is wrong before his face is smashed against the dashboard, thankfully just the once but _god_ is once enough. The pain sears through his body for the most fleeting of seconds before darkness, blessedly, overtakes him.

-

When Wyatt finally climbs out of the pit of unconsciousness, he discovers that he's in a pit of another making. He doesn't quite know how he knows he's underground, but there's a very particular sensation that comes with being in a bunker.

This must be Jacob's bunker, then. The Armory.

It smells earthy and damp in the dark little space he finds himself in. The only light emanating into the room comes from the tiniest sliver of space beneath the door, and even that is so faint that he can barely make out his fingers on the icy concrete floor. There's the fleeting temptation to crawl as close to the light as possible, pull his knees in tight and press his head to the door, but he hurts too much to move. The concrete wall at his back is a cool balm to his bodily aches, which seem to have multiplied since last he was conscious. His chest feels tight and achy, and when he exhales a sharp, stabbing pain punches through him like lightning touching down.

Time stretches on and on, like sand through his fingers. The only things he can hear are the thick, wet shuddering inhales he manages through his mangled nose, and the ever present ringing in his ears. Nothing out in whatever lies behind his dark little cell, no footsteps or whistling or sirens. 

He waits.

-

The panic never fully returns. Like the ringing in his ears, it's there in the background, but there's just not enough in him at the moment to fully process what's happened. The empty spot where a tooth was that he keeps worrying with his tongue, aches and throbs but not much else.

What of his friends? The Resistance? Did Joseph detonate something to usher in the End Times? He tells himself over and over that everyone got to their bunkers in time, because if there's anything this area has in spades it's fucking bunkers. He tells himself this isn't his fault, that he was only helping people, not playing with fire.

In the dark it's easy to pacify oneself. Holds onto his hope in a vice grip until he might just choke it to death.

-

He thinks about his Mother a lot, in the indefinable period of time he's left alone in his dark little prison. The smell of her hair, apple cinnamon shampoo and hairspray. Her oatmeal lotion, how she'd apply too much to her hands each and every time and come running to him to take away the extra. Her school lesson plans spread out across the kitchen table, coffee rings on this page, jelly smears from her breakfast toast on the next. How she'd let him watch TV with her with his head in her lap, and how her soft, soft hands would rub at his neck, and her soft, soft voice would hum absently, even through a program, lulling him to sleep.

How she'd encourage him to keep the best interests of others at heart and to always do his best, even if things got hard and he wanted to stop, to rest, _God_ to rest.

For the first time in his life, he's glad she's dead and won't get to see him, the World, like this.

He cries a little thinking about her. There's no one to see him do so, and the tears dry long before anyone comes looking for him, anyway.

-

The first time the door of his dark little room opens, Wyatt's mouth is cottony and tacky and his stomach growls louder than the ringing in his ears. A bearded Eden's Gate member stands in the entryway, haloed by a dull yellow light. It twinkles off the stock of the rifle draped around his chest. Smells of gun oil, soot.

He crouches down, roughly grabs Wyatt by the face, and guides him, groaning, to a canteen of water. It's cool, clean. The sweetest thing Wyatt's ever tasted, and he drinks and drinks and drinks until he chokes, and then drinks some more.

When the canteen is empty the nameless bearded man stands up. Hocks a mouthful of spit just inches from Wyatt's face. Through this fresh wave of pain, Wyatt can just make out the disgusted twist of the other man's lips. With the steel tip of his boot, he prods at Wyatt's ribs and chuckles when he whines.

“They should've just fuckin' killed you, Sinner,” the man hisses.

As he backs up and closes the door, Wyatt wishes they had.

-

The first and the second times the door opens are far apart, so far apart that the next Eden's Gate member, this time a different bearded man, finds Wyatt shivering in clothes soiled so long ago they're beginning to dry. There's a groan from above before two thuds sound, one distinctly louder than the other.

With as much speed as he can muster, Wyatt fetches both items – another canteen, albeit smaller than the former, and a small roll of bread.

He eats the bread with vigor and pointedly ignores the wet spots on his meal.

-

Thoughts of his Father come and go in the dark little room, woven into the memories of his Mother. It wasn't that Father was a bad man, per say, just...hard, and distant. Never laid a hand on him but didn't do much else, either. Whereas Mother, his Mama, was his everything – his teacher, his caretaker, his nurse, his confidant, his best friend. Shining and loving and warm, like a star, but Father was more a black hole – taking and taking and taking Wyatt's attempts at bonding, his searching for love and reassurance and acceptance. Sucking up everything but giving nothing back.

Wyatt doesn't have many true fond memories of the man, but he's glad that even he isn't alive anymore to see this, see him.

He does not cry. He drags his nails against the wall and stares ahead, unseeing.

-

The third time is brief, another nameless cult member opens the door, but they immediately shut it after, complaining about the smell

-

Sometimes he thinks about the Seed family.

About John, who he took out first, his god damn _YES_ and the word WRATH etched into his skin. The beard oil he used, the fancy clothes he wore. Cold, dead blue of his eyes. His hands holding Wyatt underwater during that bastard of a baptism, rings biting into his skin, not even flinching when Wyatt dug his nails in and struggled.

About Faith, and the bliss flowers that make him itch on sight. Cornsilk hair and poison apple eyes, her Mad Hatter's giggle and ethereal glow. _Welcome to the Bliss the Bliss the Bliss_.

About Joseph, fucking god damn _Prophet_ Joseph Seed, Harbinger of the Rapture. Too knowing eyes that locked your gaze and sifted straight through to your soul. His sauntered walk and his open arms, one hand extended, the other clutching a stone.

About Jacob, the eldest Seed. Scars and chemical burns and pockmarks from wars foreign and domestic, battles mental and physical. The defender of their group, now down to just two. Little music box, snap to attention. _Only you only you only you_.

What _happened_ to that fucking family? Are some people just made that off? Abuse or drugs or circumstance, or was it in their genetic coding? Psychosis passed down from parent to child, or caught the way madness often is?

Wyatt goes through what he knows of them now, what he knew of them before. Not locals but transplants, he had heard about Eden's Gate before he had even joined the force, but that was mostly in passing. A group of loons written off as just that at that point. _Hey, Wyatt! Back in the area? College not work out? Sorry to hear 'bout your mama, nice lady. But hey, have you heard about the fucking cult in the mountains? Crazy shit!_

If they had just taken it seriously, if they had all just seen the danger lurking in the woods around them.

Wyatt sniffles through dried blood and smells the soot stained into his soiled clothes. No woods to lurk in anymore, at least – small comfort to the man already in the wolf's den.

-

The fourth time might soon follow the third, but time is soupy in the dark little room. He's ripped from memories of hunting in the mountains, one of the seldom things he shared with his Father, by a set of hands hefting him up by the armpits. The cramped confines have caused his legs to fall asleep, and he stumbles pitifully into the wall. Grits his teeth through fatigue and the tingling sensations coursing up his legs. The light is so bright it blinds him even through his closed eyelids.

“Fucking disgusting,” the hauler complains in a nasally voice. He sounds young, no more than twenty, and he has trouble supporting Wyatt's superior weight. They stumble down a dimly lit corridor, the hauler propping Wyatt up during their trek, the bastard interpretation of two drunken friends supporting each other on the way home from the bar.

Turn after turn after turn, until Wyatt's roughly deposited on a tile floor above a drain. He's got enough time to slowly, gingerly, make his way to his knees before he's knocked over again by a blast of cold water from above.

“Wash up, quickly. Jacob's waiting,” the young man sneers. The cruel lilt of his lips is audible in his voice, Wyatt doesn't even have to look up.

Instead, he grabs the bar of soap he's tossed and painstakingly removes his clothes. Does he wash these, too? Is he expected to put his soiled garments right back on, or is this sniveling little piece of shit going to give him a cult jumper? Defiantly he slaps his wet clothing to the floor and internally debates over what's worse as he soaps himself down. His teeth chatter and his hands shake, and he thinks his testicles might never come back down from inside his body.

The water swirls down the drain a foot and a half from his face, frothy and pink with blood. Soon Wyatt no longer smells of piss and blood and shit, but of a neutral oatmeal not unlike his mother's lotion.

He doesn't think about it.

As he soaps down for the second time, he notices bruises that have already begun to fade, bruises that he cataloged in the dark but never actually got to see. He gently palpates his nose when he washes his face, and manages to mostly swallow a groan when he disturbs what's already begun to improperly heal.

“I said hurry up!” he yells. Following the outburst Wyatt tenses for violence, tries to shield his soft bits in preparation for blows. Even in his weakened state he could still take on the little shit, but he'd probably have to take him by surprise.

One heartbeat, then two, then three, and the kicking starts.

Little Shit manages to get in one full kick before Wyatt's aching muscles come back online long enough for him to grab the other by the calve and yank him down. His head _thunks_ against the wet tile floor satisfyingly, bounces hard. The smell of blood bursts into the room, overwhelming the smell of oatmeal in the air.

His vision tunnels, and everything is red. Red like Eli's blood red like the sky on fire red like Jacob's fucking hair. Red red red.

Before conscious thought strikes him, before the little shit has even recovered from the wind being knocked out of him, from having his head dribbled like a fucking basketball, Wyatt is on him. With his thighs he clamps down to minimize the struggling and with his fists he just....let's go.

Blow after blow after blow until his fists ache with it, knuckles split on bone and teeth, and then he keeps on. The body beneath him wriggles and writhes until it doesn't anymore, but Wyatt keeps going. There's blood spatter on his face and tears dripping from his cheeks, and if this is the last thing he does before Jacob kills him _then so fucking be it_.

He doesn't realize he's screaming with it until there's a hand over his mouth. The hand is rough, dry, burning hot against his chilled skin. Wyatt doesn't have time to flip around and try to defend himself against his new assailant before he's crushed against someone's chest. Pulled back from the cold water, from the mangled, bloody corpse on the floor. He kicks out his legs, toes scrambling for purchase on the tile, but even away from the spray the floor is slippery and he's got no chance.

_This is it this is it this is it._

“Calm down, Deputy.” The voice is low and smooth, breath warm against the side of Wyatt's face, his ear. The kind of voice that haunts dreams he cannot remember, that wake him up with a nameless sense of anxiousness trying to claw its way out. “Now, was that necessary?”

Panic flutters in his chest, his heart thunders in his throat. If he'd had anything in his stomach, it'd probably be making a reappearance on the shower floor. He's terrified, but the realization that _this is it_ has him sagging with relief in Jacob's arms.

“I leave you alone for, uh,” Jacob makes a show of leisurely checking his watch, forearm extended right in front of Wyatt's face so he can see too. Reach out and bite if he were so bold, right on all of that damaged skin, “eleven days, and the first thing you do is kill one of my men?”

 _I'd do it again_ , he opens his mouth to say, but thinks better of it. Closes his mouth with an audible click after, “I-.” He wants this over with quickly, and while he's no fool, he knows Jacob is going to draw it out and make him suffer, if not for himself then for John and Faith, he doesn't need to add insult to injury. There's a dead Eden's Gate member on the floor, that's enough extra injury.

“Cat got your tongue, Deputy?” Jacob mocks. The iron band of his arm around Wyatt's chest tightens, and he chuckles at the involuntary moan of pain it elicits.

Wyatt bites his tongue. Focuses his eyes on the bland white tile all around. Skips over the smudge of watery crimson and mangled meat.

All of a sudden, he's released. Jacob pushes him forward and the momentum takes him to his knees. They click hard against the tile, and the pain sings white hot up his sides.

Wyatt doesn't make a sound. Bites his lip to shit, though. Concentrates on the taste of blood and staunching the flow. If Jacob's going to kill him and his fate is sealed, the little victories are all he's got now.

“Get dressed,” says Jacob, like this all bores him. The dead body on the floor and the beaten, naked, shivering, soon to be dead man beside it.

When Wyatt gazes at him over his shoulder, he finds a dark set of clothing in Jacob's outstretched hand. There are also eyes on him, hard and blue like John's but decidedly not as dead. There's no fire in here like in the cab, but his eyes burn all the same. They flit up and down his body, his scarred chest and bruised arms, the muscles in his thighs, his soft cock between his legs. Finally they climb up his throat and lock onto Wyatt's, and while they're not as soul divulging as Joseph's, they're pinning all the same.

“Joseph is on the radio,” Jacob muses, still bored. Like this is just normal locker room talk. Like the world outside hasn't ended, like he's not holding Wyatt there prisoner with the intention of playing with his food before killing it. From against the wall, he cleans beneath his nails with a pocket knife. “He wants to talk to you.” 

Without any other choices and weary to the marrow, Wyatt inhales a shuddering breath and does as he's told.


	2. Chapter 2

Jacob watches as he dries off, eyes roving his body time and time again. He picks at his nails as he does it, his teeth, with the tip of his pocket knife. Taps the flat face of it against his chin as he studies Wyatt, the pale expanses of his flat stomach and broad shoulders as the piss poor excuse for a towel he was given passes over still chilled flesh. The curling edges of his wet, dripping hair, and the scars, old and new, marring his skin.

He's leaning against the shower wall nearest the door, legs crossed at the ankle and stretched out before him. Unconcerned with being alone with the man who's killed countless numbers of his men, killed his siblings, almost killed him.

Almost.

Weak. A stronger man would've.

He should've done it, should've finished it, whatever it took. Smashed all the beacons and killed all of Jacob's men, his judges, dodged Jacob's barbed words and the red laser target of his rifle only to royally fuck himself at the most crucial part. Still not sure where exactly he went wrong, but after cresting the side of the rock mass Jacob had perched himself on, his memory is fuzzy and patchy. Probably unable to fully form that final chunk of memory thanks to the blows to the head.

Whap, whap, whap.

Better he not know his exact failures. They didn't do him any good in the heat of the moment, and they won't do him any good now.

“Hurry now, peaches. Joseph might be a patient man but I am not. Get a move on.” Wyatt is jolted from his reverie by Jacob's voice, much closer now than the doorway. His tactical boots are nearly silent on the wet floor as he leisurely circles, opening and closing the pocket knife as he goes. For such a large man Jacob is eerily quiet until he chooses not to be, the only sounds made the gentle padding of his boots and the catching and releasing of the pocket knife in his grip.

Wyatt dresses quickly, head down and back to Jacob in effort to preserve even a modicum of his dignity. It's all he has left, really, and it'd be idiotic for Wyatt not to realize that. He's been cornered, beaten. He's failed, and now he's in the belly of the beast, either to be converted or destroyed.

He hopes for the latter, but he's with Jacob and his box and _only you only you only you_. Eleven days in the dark with little of anything, food or water or interaction, was hard enough to withstand without breaking, and to be frank Wyatt's pretty sure he didn't leave that room unscathed—who knows what horrors lay in waiting in his psyche—but the box...the box is something else.

It's headaches and nosebleeds and, once, trickles coming from his ears. It's throwing up food he doesn't recall eating and scrubbing his hands clean of blood and visceral with unknown origins. It's losing 24, 48, sometimes 72 hour chunks at a time and having absolutely no recollection of those hours until he wakes up in the middle of the night, covered in sweat or piss or tears or, fuck, all three, with bile rising in his throat just behind a scream, and the red fog slowly receding, inching back to illuminate one random detail at a time. It's Jacob's voice in his head, taunting him, praising him, _perfect good that's it_ , and the sick, shameful warmth that spreads in his stomach as a result.

The jeans he was given are huge, and hang on his hips _just_ shy of obscenely. Wyatt flusters as he buttons them, wishing desperately for his belt as he futilely tugs them up only to have them fall back down seemingly lower than before.

From somewhere behind him, Jacob laughs to himself and kicks at the sodden pile of Wyatt's clothes not five feet from the dead cultist. Wyatt's discarded belt buckle clicks dully against the rubber sole of his boot. Taunts him. “Looks like you've lost a few, Deputy. Didn't get enough to eat on Leave?”

To keep from having to answer, Wyatt shimmies the undershirt he was given over his head, this one a little tighter than he'd like, and quickly follows it with a plain off white sweater, blessedly free of that damn sunburst cross Eden's Gate loves so much. He swims in the sweater, too, but at least he can tuck his hands to hide his clenched fists. Small victories, after all.

Once dressed, Wyatt stands with his arms at his sides, fists tucked into the sleeves, and waits. His feet are still bare and his hair is still dripping, but he suspects that his current poor fitting attire is all he's going to get; another one of Jacob's little mind games.

“Come,” Jacob calls, like Wyatt is some god damn dog. Some god damn dog who complies, teeth gritting and fists clenched but obliging all the same. “You, are going to follow me to the communications room. Joseph has it in his head that you are somehow still important, so instead of letting me just, y'know, kill you, he's going to try _one more time_ to bring you to heel.”

With a sudden flurry of movement, Jacob pops the pocket knife open once more and uses the tip to lift Wyatt's gaze to his own. The sharp tip catches on delicate skin but Wyatt does not flinch. He stares back into Jacob's blue eyes with as much defiance as he can afford, enough to show that, just maybe, he's not _entirely_ beaten down, but not enough to get him beaten down again.

“I'm going to allow you to follow behind me with no restraints. Remember, you have lost, and you are incredibly outnumbered. You can try to take me out, but you already failed once before, right? And you were prepared then. You have no weapons, no friends, nowhere to go – you have nothing but what I allow you to have. You do nothing but what I allow you to do. So be a good little soldier and do as you're told. Do not make me regret this.”

-

As Wyatt trails behind Jacob into the bowels of the bunker, eyes follow him the entire way.

Some of the cultists look relieved to finally have something new to fixate on, a new variable to explore and learn to take their minds off plans to endure the Collapse and then begin their Rebirth. They watch him curiously and follow as close as they dare, whispering animatedly among themselves. Men and women alike, orbiting around the pair to get a good look at the Deputy, the enemy that their leaders have been courting again and again.

Others are less intrigued. Their distrust and disdain flow off them in waves, makes Wyatt's chest tight with _too much too many nowhere to go_. They are curled lips and shuttered eyes and the crack, crack, crack, of knuckles being popped in the shadows, eager to let Wyatt know that if he messes up, if he ends up undeserving of retribution in the eyes of the Father, that they're ready, willing, and able to take him out.

Without thinking, he closes the slight gap between himself and Jacob until there's less than a foot between them. So close he can feel the heat emanating off Jacob's back, smell gun oil and dried sweat and the faintest traces of lemongrass and mint. In his hyper alert state, the thought of lemongrass and mint and _Jacob Seed_ , ex Marine marksman, terror of the Whitetail Mountains, has him biting his lip to keep the hysterical giggles in, has him lowering his chin to his chest to try and hide his delirious smirk.

Lemongrass and mint, huh.

Thinking about that is better than the alternatives, like what his conversation with Joseph will hold. Like just how he's going to manage to endure Jacob's Armory, or, hell, _if_ he's going to manage to endure.

The future is as fuzzy and off limits to him as his doom on that clifftop.

-

As they descend another flight of stairs, Wyatt studies Jacob's high and tight as it bounces. It's long for regulation standards, like his beard. Red red red, auburn maybe, with grays starting to appear at the temples, peppered in through his beard.

Wyatt imagines grabbing him by the mop on his head and bashing his face into the wall. Smearing the crimson of his blood into the monotonous concrete around them.

He's mulling over the merits of pulling those auburn strands tight in his left fist and wailing, punch after punch after punch with his right, mashing Jacob's scarred face into hamburger meat, the ultimate disfigurement, when Jacob stops in the entryway and Wyatt comes up short. His shoulder knocks into Jacob's, and an automatic “sorry” is already forming on his lips when he's grabbed by the front of his sweater and thrust into the room with a grunt.

He manages not to fall this time, bare feet slapping on cold concrete.

“Do you have to be so rough, Brother? It looks like Deputy McKenna has suffered plenty,” comes _that voice_.

Wyatt's head snaps up and around and then suddenly, there He is. Not in the room but a damn close second. Situated on the far back wall of the room is a large screen, and the majority of that is taken up by the image of Joseph Seed, in those damn yellow glasses. His face has several almost healed scratches and his hair is escaping the bun on the back of his head, but he looks more invigorated than Wyatt has ever seen him. Fueled by the fact that he was _right_.

On the right side of the screen, Wyatt can see three other videofeeds coming in—two are blacked out, but in the third Wyatt can just make out Jacob moving behind him. He watches Jacob produce two chairs and sit in one, then lightly kick the empty one with his foot.

Not a radio transmission, Jesus. A video conference, though they're missing two key persons.

The radio would've been easier. It's harder to deny his voice when you can see his face, his conviction.

“Sit,” Jacob says.

Sit he does.

“Have you been enjoying your time in the Whitetails, Deputy? I hope Jacob hasn't been too rough.” Joseph's smile makes his skin crawl, and Wyatt shifts uneasily in his seat. Joseph Seed, like all of the members of the Seed family, gives off an energy that is near indescribable—warm like radiation, like his skin is too tight, like he could be convinced to cut some of it off in supplication if he was asked _just right_. He's not even in the fucking room and Wyatt can feel parts of himself giving into the pull of the Father. Has to force himself to resist it like before, in the Church that started it all, can't give in this easy.

_Cuff him, Rook._

He's so exhausted, but he has to resist.

_No one is coming to save you._

“Not one for talking are you Deputy McKenna?” Amusement sharpens the edges of his smile. “That's okay, it's best for you to listen, anyway. See, I need you to hear me. Need you to soak it all in. Because this? This is your last chance for Redemption, for Forgiveness.” Watery blue-green eyes flicker over to Jacob. “My Brother does not believe you worthy of Absolution. Believes you've served your entire purpose and need to be put down, like a rabid dog. But I, and more importantly, _God_ believe you have so much more to give.”

More to give? What more does he have to give? He's given his time and his energy, his sanity and his conscience, to what he _thought_ was the right course of action—and it all ends the same way.

Red sky.

Collapse.

He's exhausted and spent and again wishes for a bullet between his eyes, the easy way out. Absolution, from crimes past and future. Nothing good will come from making a deal with devils, or with Prophets in Wyatt's case, but whether he likes it or not he's being brought to heel.

A man is easily broken, and Wyatt has been cracked from the start of this fool's errand.

“All I need you to do is repent. Let God's Word into your heart and shed your past misdeeds. The world of old is over, the Collapse has come, and you are still alive for a reason. Given, part of that reason is that I stayed Jacob's hand.” From Wyatt's left, Jacob snorts, and Joseph's smile loses some of its harshness. Cloying manipulative sweetness tempered by a brother's genuine affection. “But it was God who told me to give the order. See, Deputy McKenna—may I call you Wyatt?”

Wyatt swallows, throat clicking. He clenched his fists within his sweater. Something pulls and stings along his knuckles. Wyatt risks a look down to his lap, sees the cuffs of the too big sweater are dotted in drying blood. Knuckles split on teeth and bone. He'd almost forgotten.

_Hurry up!_

“Speak when spoken to,” Jacob quietly hisses, startling all the same.

“I, uh...I guess,” he mutters, head turned.

“Great, Wyatt. See, the world as we knew it is blessedly over, and as we speak the planet is being cleansed of its sins. In the coming months, we will ascend from our refuge and begin the world anew. You could, you _will_ thrive in this new world, Wyatt. A man with your strengths and abilities was wasted on the old world, on the Resistance. It was always us you were meant to be with. You just have to say _yes_. You just have to ask forgiveness.”

At the utterance of John's Word, Jacob sits up a little straighter. His hands slowly clench into fists, and he holds them like that for several seconds until, suddenly, he softly exhales and they unclench. “It won't be easy,” Jacob says. “You are weak, and I still don't think you're worthy of this.”

“Jacob,” Joseph chides.

“No, no, I don't—he killed John. Killed Faith. Killed hundreds of our men. Our _family_ , Joseph.” His breath catches ever so slightly on “family”, and Joseph's smile fades completely. Jacob stands and begins pacing, and it's almost like Wyatt is no longer in the room. A voyeur in their private conversation despite being front and center. “You're going to invite disaster into our new home and pray that everything goes right? We don't _need him_ , Joseph. We've got other men, we've got other capable people. Strong people, people we can trust. I can train the new ones we find—”

“That's enough, Brother.”

Jacob turns his face away, his hair shifting down to obscure his forehead. His chest rises and falls heavily, and the dog tags around his neck click and clink together. “Is it, Joseph? When will it _be_ enough? I've followed you—John, Faith, they followed you. I will continue following you. But what makes him so special?”

“I don't like it any more than you do, Jacob. But God has granted me visions, and our Deputy McKenna is in them. With us, in our new Eden. At your side. You just have to have faith, brother. All will be revealed.”

And like that, the spell is broken. Suddenly Wyatt finds himself the sole focus of attention, pinned in place by the gazes of both Seed brothers. They do not look much alike, Joseph whip thin where Jacob is full, broad; Jacob's features soft and round, scarred, where Joseph's are angular and only marked intentionally. But what they do share, what John shared as well, are those eyes—each brother with eyes a different shade of blue, John's near electric, Jacob's full and icy blue-gray, Joseph's a misty blue-green, but it's the _gaze_ in them, the fire that roars inside, that is their mark of kinship.

Being stuck between them both feels like burning.

“As you can see, Wyatt, my brother has his...doubts. But God's plan for you has no room for such things, no need. He is sure, of the future and of you. Join us. Fulfill your destiny and live righteously with us in our new Eden.” Joseph stands as well, and holds his hands out, palms extended. Around his right wrist is his ever present rosary, snaked up his forearm and around his index and middle fingers. “You will be tried, you will be tested, but you will be found true. All you have to do is let go and have faith.”

Jacob always said he was a weak man.

Why fight it? What does he have to gain? Maintain his pride and die a violent, vicious death, Jacob's fists and The Song and his judges. Head in a bag on the side of the road, crucified for the Apocalypse to see? 

Within himself, Wyatt can feel the last of his resistances fading. Tears swim in his eyes. He has the overwhelming urge to apologize—not to the Seeds, but to his statesmen, those he bled for and with over the course of this entire fucked up situation. He doesn't even know if any of them are alive. Can't ask in case that paints a target on their backs. A target he'll have to gun for.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

He always knew he would die in Montana. Never should've come back. After Father died, he should've convinced Mama to move with him, leave this tainted place. Then, even when she got sick, he wouldn't have to come back here. Wouldn't flip the hourglass on this whole situation and watch civilization crumble from the bosom of Hope County.

He digs his nails into the meat of his thighs and squeezes. The pain allows him to focus a little, to shake the doom and gloom in his head, give himself time to regroup his thoughts while it resettles.

_It was always going to happen this way._

_You'll walk the path, and then you'll choose._

“Yes,” he whispers

Jacob stops pacing.

“You have to speak louder than that, Wyatt. Speak to me. Speak to God,” Joseph encourages. “Let your declaration ring out!” His voice is full, exuberant. It practically vibrates, his excitement is so palpable. His right hand raises in the benediction gesture, ready to bestow it.

“Yes,” he says again, heart in his throat. Blinks through his tears but refuses to let them fall.

Once again, he's glad his Mother's not alive to see this.

God forgive him.

“Father.”

Jacob starts moving around again, quickly stalking back and forth, muttering to himself. His mouth twitches into a snarl, teeth bared like a defensive wolf. One hand rests on the machete on his thigh, flex flex flex on the handle, the other cards through his high and tight, pulls it down so it's no longer high nor tight.

Wyatt feels nothing. Clean. Empty.

“It's not going to be that easy. You don't just get to—get to be _absolved_ like that,” Jacob cries. He spins and looks from Wyatt to Joseph. “You are weak and—”

“And you will make him strong!” Joseph returns. His voice booms and Jacob is immediately cowed, takes a step back from the screen. “You, brother, will make him strong, so he may make us stronger! Do not fight the will of God, but embrace it, no matter what he throws at us. This is a glorious day, Jacob. Leading the Resistance's Angel of Death into our righteous embrace. Think of the things we can do together.”

“There's going to be trials and tests of devotion and—”

“Yes, brother, yes. And he will pass them all, everything you throw at him. Isn't that right, brother?”

“Joseph, I—”

“I was speaking to Wyatt, Jacob.” Joseph's eyes shimmer with mirth. “Isn't that right, brother? You will pass every trial, accomplish every task Jacob throws your way? Prove your worth and your devotion?”

“Yes, Father,” says Wyatt.

Jacob deflates. He sits on a neighboring desk and holds his clasped hands between his legs, head slightly hung.

Mourning John, mourning Faith.

Making peace with the thought of making peace after decades of waging war.

He's still for a long moment, then raises his head, locks eyes with Wyatt. Like a switch getting flipped, Jacob eases himself off the desk and stalks over to Wyatt. The fire in his eyes looks ready to combust, swallow Wyatt whole. Burn the entire bunker down in the blink of an eye.

When Jacob grabs his face, Wyatt braces for his rough grip, bruising fingers digging into already bruised flesh. Penance for the fallen before his absolution. But Jacob's grip is loose, less gripping and more holding. Cradling. Skin warm and dry against his cheek, calloused thumb dragging as Jacob rubs his jaw. Wyatt's chin sits between Jacob's thumb and index finger, and when his face is urged up their faces are inches apart.

“You are weak,” Jacob whispers, “but I will make you strong. You will earn this forgiveness. You will prove your worth to me. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Wyatt sits up straighter, and it brings their faces even closer together. Close enough that Wyatt can see the freckling on Jacob's face, hidden by the scarring. They share breath for several long moments, shaky deep pulls of each other's air. Gingerly, Wyatt wraps a hand around Jacob's wrist. Feels his pulse thundering against his fingertips. Pushes his head into Jacob's palm. “I'll show you.”

“Yes, what?” Joseph urges, voice reverent.

The air seems to shimmer around them, like walking through a field of bliss.

“Yes, brother.”

 


End file.
